


Differentials and Debts

by SQ (proteinscollide)



Category: House M.D.
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-01-01
Updated: 2006-01-01
Packaged: 2017-10-24 14:50:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/264720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/proteinscollide/pseuds/SQ
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No one's truly altruistic. Wilson calls in the many debts House owes him by now.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Differentials and Debts

**Author's Note:**

> for Alasen

Wilson waits until House has poured another glass of the excellent red wine before he asks.

“So what do you want?” Direct, but not hostile. He’s not fooled by this, an invitation to dinner, and finding House up to his elbows in marinade and a fine flank of beef when he arrives, dessert chilling in the refrigerator. His friend is up to something.

“Why do I have to - ” House shrugs on Wilson’s glare, and says plainly, “Well it was worth a try. I’d like to borrow some money, hence this extravagant excuse of a meal.”

Wilson knows, thinks he knows, what House is up to. He’s careful to keep his face blank as he pulls his case towards him, and pulls out his chequebook. “Sure, how much do you need this time?” He’s even managed to swallow the surge of anger with another mouthful of the radicchio salad, the flavours fresh and tart.

House answers with the same deliberate nonchalance. “Oh, at least eight thou, that’ll do me.” There’s a grin at the corners of his mouth, but sharp at the eyes, a tightness to the face.

Wilson fights the urge to scream, give another lecture, say _no!_ As House is expecting and dreading, and wanting from him, to draw blood. Instead, he picks up a pen and writes the amount on the line in his hurried scrawl. It isn’t until he goes to hand it over that Wilson adds, “You know, you don’t have to keep testing me – my friendship, loyalty, whatever you want to call it.”

“Oh, but I do,” House shoots back, fingers closing over the cheque and pulling back. “Everyone has reasons for being friends with someone else, it’s just a symptom of their needs.”

“How do you figure that?” Wilson asks, incredulous in spite of himself and his firsthand knowledge of House’s peculiar analyses of human behaviours.

“Watching them at work,” House is pouring himself a large glass of the wine, his third of the night. “Chase sucks up because he doesn’t know any better, because he wants to be liked in return despite every proof to the contrary. Foreman doesn’t bother, because he doesn’t think he needs anything for me, and one day he’ll know why he’s wrong and I won’t need to be nice to him because _I’ll_ have no reason. Cameron, well. Cameron.” And House makes a face somewhere between a wince and a laugh and guilt, and Wilson feels his face harden because he knows what that means.

“Right. What about me, then? By your theory, I probably manipulated you into having this dinner. I’m the one who wants something, even though I’m the one who lets you make fun of my perfectly fine dress sense, I’m the one who gets abused every time I try to reign you in from one of your less agreeable ideas, I’m the one who lets you interrupt me at all hours for sometimes the smallest of things, and I’m the one who’s just handed over a large sum of his own hard-earned money.”

“Mine’s hard-earned too,” House points out, just to be infuriating, “And you did get a free and very good dinner just then.”

House continues, “And that’s exactly it, what you’ve pointed out – what kind of inherently selfish human – and that’s every single last one of us – willingly puts himself through all that for that long all for the sake of mere friendship? I rest my case.” House sits back with a smug smile of “I’m _always_ (eventually) right”.

“Yes, I see now. You _are_ right. What man would settle for just friendship?” Wilson tips his head to one side, and his mouth curves into a slow smile of his own: beautiful, wolfish. “I should call in my debts.”

House frowns then, but before he can open his mouth to complain, Wilson moves forward and kisses him. He can smell the faintest touch of cologne, faded from the long hours, but unmistakably House; and taste the spices of the wine on their tongues.  
House is leaning so far forward into the kiss that the castors of his chair slide back, an equal and opposite reaction, an unwanted event. It’s a good kiss – forceful, warm – and Wilson laughs silently in and around it when House reaches up blindly with one hand to hold him steady, fingers curled into his shirt, knees as a vice, mouths still sweetly fitted together.

When Wilson draws back for breath, he jokes, “You know, that doesn’t even start covering what you owe me.”

But House is always a step ahead: his fingers are nimble as he loosens the knot of Wilson’s tie and pulls it away, and delicate as they pop the buttons open, one by one, and finally, they are the hottest touch, and too slow, as they slide under the material and over skin.

“We can work out a repayment plan in instalments,” House says teasingly, “I’m sure we’ll find a solution pleasing to both of us.” And Wilson is sure they can, and will.

END


End file.
